


Early Bird Special

by Fatale (femme)



Series: post episode ficlets [6]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M, grouchy old man magnus, post episode season 3 episode10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 11:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17000310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: Alec forgets sometimes how old Magnus is.





	Early Bird Special

**Author's Note:**

> just a jokey ficlet that came about from a wild discord chat. for cryptidbane and alittlebriton. <3!

 

 

 

 

 

Alec forgets sometimes how old Magnus is. Just because his body looks young, frozen in time, forever shy of thirty like a mosquito trapped in amber, Magnus has an old soul.

And with the loss of its magic, that old soul is crotchety and wears chunky knit cable sweaters, constantly complains that it's drafty in the loft, and his soup is too cold.

Alec understands that it's a big adjustment and the shock has been jarring to Magnus, but it's as if every one of his many years has caught up to him all at once. Though he hasn't physically aged, suddenly he's shuffling forward, back bowed, unsure how to navigate a world that he feels he no longer fits in. It physically pains Alec to see the hesitance in his step.

"My knees hurt," Magnus complains piteously, pulling a kleenex out of his sleeve to dab at his nose while huddled on the couch, wrapped in a shawl Alec has never seen before. "I'm a frail old man, Alexander."

"For fuck's sake," Alec huffs. Without his appointments or duties to keep him busy, Magnus mostly sits around and eats hard candies, talks about the olden days, watches his daytime programs. 

"This show is terrible," Alec mumbles, hands still stained from earlier when he carefully helped Magnus bleach some of the color out of his hair and brush in purple dye with those funny tiny paintbrushes. It doesn't look too bad; the blond is a little brassy and the purple is patchy, but it seems to make Magnus feel better. And when Alec sat across from him and carefully painted his fingernails a matching deep purple, Alec was happy to see him looking so much like himself. 

Next to him, Magnus is curled up on the couch, clutching a fistful of those nasty chalky after dinner mints he sucks on until they dissolve in his mouth. ("Just chew them," Alex says. Magnus shakes his head no.)

Each night, Alec takes the Bengay he picked up at the pharmacy while Magnus fretfully waited in line, sandwiched between two white-haired seniors, to have his blood pressure taken on the free machine next to the toothbrushes. He rubs it into Magnus's back before bed, massages his muscles while Magnus just moans about how he remembers when gas was $.36 a gallon. Actually, he corrects himself mid-sentence, much before that, back when steam locomotion was the devil's handiwork and highly suspect.

Alec has every faith that this is temporary. He's on the hunt for Asmodeus and working on a plan. But in the meantime, though it makes him feel like a terrible boyfriend and maybe an even worse person, he's a tiny bit relieved that this happened, even while he regrets it. In every single vision for the future, in every way Alec could've plotted this, Magnus would have been doing these things for him. He would have been making Alec soft boiled eggs and ironing his jeans and rubbing his sore muscles at night. It took this happening for Alec to see that Magnus would have never held his age against him, that these things weren't burdens when you loved the person you were doing them for. And he's more than glad to do them for Magnus.

But still, Alec refuses to eat dinner at 5 pm, no matter how much Magnus wheedles.

They're going to fix this. Magnus is going to get out of his funk, redraw the lines of his self-perception, learn that he is and always has been so much more than his magical ability. True strength comes from resilience of spirit, not spells or potions. And Magnus is one of the strongest people Alec knows.

But in the meantime, Alec turns off Jeopardy and gently leads Magnus into the bedroom, where Magnus peels off his old man cardigan, pulls off his shirt, and lies on the bed. Alec grabs the Bengay off the bedside table and touches Magnus' side to get him to roll over. He presses a tender kiss into Magnus' shoulder and says, "Tell me more about those wicked new-fangled steam locomotives, and how you walked a hundred miles in the snow to get to school," and gets started on Magnus' back.


End file.
